Fragmentation

Future of connected productivity – smart cloud and smart devices?

Is the future of connected productivity spanning across smart cloud and smart devices? Can we expect deeper synergy between cloud and devices?

Today’s trends

Fast trends across industries force many organizations to quickly innovate. Organizations are looking at streamlining and adjusting processes, so it’s no surprise that many IT-related assets and services are under heavy scrutiny. This poses additional opportunities to think outside of IT and focus on what really matters for the business. But what is the role that cloud services and devices play?

Cloud services

Organizations are rightfully looking to simplify the existing IT assets by adopting cloud services. Today – many cloud services need proper implementation, integration and configuration to precisely address the business needs of the organization and to maximize its value – more in this post.

Devices

Many users bring their own devices (BYOD) and demand to use them for productivity, gradually increasing the amount of assets managed (or co-managed) by IT. The footprint of corporate confidential data and corporate boundaries are growing. This further increases the complexity and manageability for the entire IT.

BYOD users yet rightfully expect to use same productivity habits and applications in the multi-dimensional world and don’t expect any compromises. Yet in reality for IT this would be the most difficult environment to set-up and maintain. So rules and standards are invented and implemented to protect the corporate data and it may seem that the user experience is left as last in this process.

User Experience Fragmentation

Devices we carry today are constantly more powerful and thus capable to deliver more. The way this personal computing power is translated into next generation interoperable and seamless user experience is yet to be seen. There are hundreds or thousands of apps and online services that perform related activities, but the integration story among them is weak – mostly none. This is very similar to early IT days where interoperability did not exist. As today on my phone one app does something and accesses a cloud service or two, the other one accesses another cloud service – oh and the third does corporate e-mail. Separate credentials, different user experiences and frustration with one single device… The more app the more frustration. Should not it be the other way around? Or even better just the right apps with great user experience?

It is all about great and seamless user experiences. Devices in the future should work more like hubs, seamlessly bridging apps, cloud services and data, while protecting sensitive work and personal information. Cloud services and devices will start acting as multiplicators of overall value for users – both on business and consumer/personal level. Smart devices will become catalysts of cloud service adoption on many levels. It’s not just about the ability to access the cloud services – from anywhere and from any device – but about seamless and connected productivity.

I’m very excited to experience the future – simple yet rich experiences that would transform the way people consume smart cloud services for any purpose, at any time and from anywhere – using their smart devices.